some of puppies

 the last teams should come in to Nome over the next 24 hours.  everyone looks to be out of White Mountain by now.  8 scratches.  4 dog deaths...that are the stats.  the deaths are always sad.  actually kind of 5 but the one happened after the dog was no longer in Iditarod hands.  dog hit by car in Anchorage after escaping from handlers house.

 Ivy is nearly done with her AB's and her incision looks great.

 i was on call last night and never got called in.  actually got some sleep.  lazy getting started this morning so i was watching some Video on teams coming into Nome.

 the tide is headed out so thinking we may head to Kincaid and hit the beach.  always fun.  debated heading to Seward but i'm moving too slow and there are things i probably should get accomplished.  toilets that need repair.

 these pups are so much fun.  they are both snugglers.  Tusker is a calm snuggler and Ivy Rose is a crazy snuggler.  both love bugs still the same.

 the night before last at work i was a sitter all night. don't really think that lady needed a sitter so it was pretty chill. i literally read a book.  it was a 700 page book and i got up to the last 100 pages i think before shift change. just a novel about a woman who's hears her husband died in a plane crash but it wasn't the plane she thought he was on going to where she thought he was going so it was her trying to figure out what all the lies were in a marriage she thought was stable and good.

 one of the newest additions to my native art.  love these scrimshaw art pieces on baleen.

 Ivy 24 hours post op and jumping on a table in the yard....i do hope if i ever have a hysterectomy i am this spunky post op.  everyone who says they've had the surgery deny feeling this good after though.  haha.

 my other piece below.

 loved all the different whales.

 OMG...i got a note on my car last week from a presumed admirer.  nothing gross or weird, but i have to admit the name is not familiar and no number was left.  so odd but i was in no way freaked out or anxious or nervous about it.  i did ask a few people in the ER if they knew who this person was as he had mentioned seeing me in the ER.

 apparently, this note freaked a few out who were concerned i was being stalked or something.  one person mentioned it to security.  while i was in the room sitting that last night the house supervisor came in concerned about me getting this note and wanting me to write it up in an "unusual occurrence note".  (UOR).  i didn't of course, it's one note and it's not like there was any lewd remarks in it.  very innocuous note.  only one note.

 it is so inconceivable that i could be seen as attractive to these people that someone giving me any attention in a romantic way is seen as an unusual occurrence?

 pretty sad really.  i realize i am not out there that much but i am a pretty dang good catch at any age if i do say so myself.  finding me attractive is not just an unusual occurrence!!

 thought it was silly to send out the alarm on this anyway.  i found it funny and flattering at least.  still no idea who wrote it.  could be a joke for all i know.  i'm not concerned about it. time will tell.

 these are from another day on the beach.  the coastal refuge.

 big chunks of ice of course.

 probably more out there now since there were some big tides.  i had driven out and saw a pretty good size bore tide after this and saw a video of a bore tide the next day that was even bigger so i'm sure some ice bergs got tossed a bit

 the pups playing on the bergs

 stark but beautiful scenery

 this one is tough to see but it's one of those big pancake ice bergs

 pups had fun checking it out.

 we have had fun hitting the dog park again now that Ivy is not in heat and all spayed.  they do enjoy it over there.

 the dogs are on the big pancake ice above.  that is all one big round berg

 Tusker on the ice.

 no walk yesterday.  somehow doing nothing but sitting in a room all night can be more exhausting than actually working.

 my last half hour of my shift the first night got a bit nuts.

 a family member, who sounded very drunk, called and he was not a pleasant drunk.  couldn't understand anything the man said until he would start yelling and swearing at me.  he screamed, "are you a f.... retard?"  and then he started screaming more expletives at me..pissed that i couldn't understand what he was saying.  i had to keep asking him to repeat what he was saying. the swear words were the only things that could be understood.  i hung up on him.

 really no point trying to reason with someone in this state.  better to just hang up and cut them off.  sober up jerk.  then my patient got a plug.  this happens when the airway gets obstructed with crap.  before i could clear it out her sats dropped down to the 40's and then her heart rate dropped...nice 8 second pause.  must have cleared it as it all returned.  always gets your heart racing a bit to end your shift like that though.

 am i getting to old for this?  some days i wonder.

 have one co-worker who apparently seems to think i have it easy and get special treatment all the time.  mostly he seems to focus on my assignments.  he was shocked to see that i was in a 1:1 assignment the other night.  he seems to always be complaining anyway.  people need to just come in, do their job and not be so concerned with everyone else.  i think it's easy to create this stuff in your head. i know there have been times when i have had less than ideal assignments and have looked at the list and where others are going. easy to start to believe that you are getting the bum end of the deal.  i try to just look at my assignment and move on.

 i think we all get the shaft at times or for periods of times.  we are often joking that this person or that person has a dark cloud over them. crap is cyclic.

 always beautiful. today it looks cold out there.  i think we are back down close to zero or below.  made it easy to linger in bed for a bit.

 Ivy checks out a log on the beach

 off to the arm for some views and i hit the Conservation Center that day as well.

 always looks cool in black and white.

 guess i better get my day started.  enjoy yours.

grateful for:  A.  my education and relatively carefree childhood.  B.  freedom, as a kid and now  C.  the media, a free media is a great thing.  go team....find us the truth and let it be known.

Dark Hearts....

 loved the look on Ivy's face on this tackle shot...

 some people just have dark hearts i think.  for whatever reason they are unhappy some place deep inside, reasons unknown.  they often on the outside seem to have happy lives.  the truth is people can fake you into believing their lives are fabulous and happy when maybe they aren't as awesome as they put out there.

 growing up in the Mormon faith i recall seeing this at some point in my life.  people seemed to spend some effort making everyone else think their lives were already perfect...perfection seeming to be the goal.  i'm sure it's like that in many lives and cultures, it's just that being mormon was the one i grew up.  these perfect people in perfect lives failed at some point and i just remember being so shocked.  they were so perfect, their lives so perfect, how could they possibly not be perfect.  what had i missed?

 the goal was perfection ultimately and for me, i just felt fallible.  i was so far from perfect.  i did not fit into what a Mormon girl was supposed to be, supposed to want.  there was great effort on both my part and on those around me to try and get me to look and act like the perfect mormon girl, but it was never to be.

 at some point i realized that striving for perfection was over rated.  i read this one page article when i was a teen at some point in one of my moms redbooks or similar magazine.  it was talking about how too often we strive to be the best at everything we attempt and if we can't be the best than we just give up feeling a failure.  the article mentioned that it was ok to be mediocre at many things rather than excel at a few.  it didn't make you a failure to try something and not reach some level of perfection at it.  you didn't have to have the right clothes and equipment to do each activity.  it was ok to be just ok.

 often i have found over my years that people who are at peace whether they have a religion specifically or not have a lightness to them.  they do not feel the need to judge others or be unkind.  it simply doesn't occur to them.

 these are out at the coastal refuge here in Anchorage. i know this doesn't look like a coast line many of you are used to but this is the beach here.

 with Ivy in heat it seemed a good place to go where they could play and not run into many dogs.  she remains a virgin still..

 it had actually warmed up...bummer though. i love my snow.  it was pretty windy down there, but in my mind that just would keep others away. this gave the pups a great opportunity to run and run and run.  they started chasing the ravens that were happily catching all the wind.  they wore themselves out and are out cold at this moment.

 next week they will be a year old!! my babies are growing up.

 Valentines Day is not a day i really celebrate.  it's been years since it was a day that made me feel sad or lonely or depressed i guess.  life is what it is.  love didn't stick to me...or i ran from love.  probably more the later.

 one of those dark hearted folks posted a meme today which didn't cause me to go into depression but it was really just not a nice or funny thing at all in my mind.  it said something like, if you got no valentine love today, don't worry, nobody loves you any of the other days of the year either.  why would anyone post this or think it was a funny thing to post?

 the brother that posted his little article about those who leave the church tend to not end up in another organized religion and he had stated, "embrace of 'whatever' is the loss of meaningful values".  really...because i don't believe in some conventional way i have lost any sort of meaningful value and no doubt myself and others like me are the demise of our society...of course, he liked this meme this other person posted. i suspect he would have liked to have left the church years ago, but by the time he figured it out he was married with several kids.  life gets complicated.

 i recall speaking to a friend who had married a good friend of mine.  they had been married for a bit and i can't remember if they had a kid yet or not but he was debating leaving the church.  i remember telling him that he had gotten married and made promises to my friend.  that this was the reason i had felt that making a decision about the church was something i had to do before i got into a serious relationship.  once you have made a commitment to someone it's never as simple.

 you either find a way to make peace with the life you live, change it or maybe you develop a dark heart of sorts.  you find a way to lash out at others.

 i watch these folks who troll on facebook, spreading nastiness or post dozens and dozens of posts each day filled with hate and anger at this or that...you can hate hillary or obama or trump or the person who disagrees with you on facebook... whoever...you can scream at them but they can't retaliate so it's safe.  all that anger can just escape onto social media. i do not respect our current iitoo, but that visceral hate i see for hillary or obama for me it's not worth it.

 i think flynn is a fall guy and the tip of the iceberg.  i want our nation to succeed and see this current administration as dangerous to our way of governing.  on the flip side...perhaps the corruption is so deep that this will be the way it gets weeded out again.  perhaps the apathy is so deep that this is how people get involved again.  out nation does not do well without participation.  hoping to see more of that.

 for how much many have slammed h and o, they seem totally fine with the current crazy.  they seem to be willing to "move on" and not investigate what is possibly and probably happening.  it's never just one guy...it's never just one guy.

 cracks me up and also shocks me to flip between stations...when something happens like this flynn thing i do like to flip over to faux news and see what they are saying.  not much.  nothing or else they were screaming about liberals who are trying to make this bigger than they think it is....and then they start screaming about h or o and emails...omg...enough with the emails!

 it did feel good today to see a piece of this madness take a fall.  it gives me hope that despite how corrupt the right has become, there are a few things that are still working. at some point Rus will turn on current.  he will prove useless to him. i suspect iitoo doesn't really want to be there.  this is not what he had in mind.

 puppies in the wind.

 the skies cleared enough to be beautiful and then closed back down a bit before i headed home.  it was probably a great sunset, but i think i had settled in for a bit.

 amazing how easy it is to waste time.

 Ivy is for sure more irritable than usual.  i do feel a bit of sweetness towards her...no idea what dog hormones are like but surging hormones are never good for anyone. hopefully we can get her spay done on time and not have to make her do this again.

 these guys are both sweet pups

 here you can see them and the ravens...they had a lot of ground to cover.  wide and open so they were good to go and they did.

 love to be able to allow them that.  dogs love to run, love to chase.

 i may not have love on Valentines or the other 364 days of the year in the standard form, but i have dogs...and that is love.

 our lives are not mirror images of each other.  we all have lessons to learn and i feel ways are created to help us to learn the things we need to learn in this life.

 back at the raven

 here is the raven taking a break.  i think it had fun with the pups too.

 tough to maintain with the wind blowing.

 really need to clear off this table in the office.  the waris stuff is stacked...so like my dad.

 lots of sky shots...it just was beautiful.

 hoping you all have light hearts and have peace.

 this is my love here...

  a long time ago i realized it was better to be alone than to be in a bad relationship. i also realized that it was important to invest in my dogs as they were probably going to be my longest relationships in this life. nothing freaky...they are my dogs.  why do i feel the need to clarify that?  there are some dark hearted folks out there who would try and make something rude of my relationship with my pups.

 watched a bit of the westminster Kennel club.  always find it a bit annoying that labs and goldens have never won best in show...how is that possible...bias.  there is always a poodle in the final group it seems.  not that poodles are terrible but really, almost every time?  and i would say the terrier group is way too huge!!  over 30!! mastiffs are not in the winning circle either.  there are certain breeds that do tend to get the big win more than others.  this year it was the German Shepherd.  i'm cool with those dogs.  the handler guy was very enthusiastic and energized.  he had on a suit but his shirt was all untucked from him jumping around.

 pups are in dream mode...so cute

 hopefully happy dreams of chasing ravens and running free.

 don't let the dark hearted in the world make you feel bad about yourself.  feel badly for them....as they fight the anger that is inside themselves.

 may light find you and may laughter find you.

grateful for:  A.  good works of cia, fbi, the good guys and gals...make it happen  B. media. they are being given a bad rap and i hope they counter with getting the big scoop that takes all these corrupt idiots down  C.  happy dogs running and chasing birds.  that they trust me.  that they are good pups.